Recording Life ~ Fishing

My father had a unique skill in interpersonal relationships.  Without selling someone something they didn’t want, he could nonetheless divert their objections as if he was Obi-Wan in the Star Wars movie.
The power company needed to install a new feeder circuit in a fast growing city in Utah.  Everyone wanted the power for their homes, [...]

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Choices ~ Consequences

Choices. Consequences: They never sleep.
From the time we are born, we make choices and enjoy the consequences of those choices. We often associate the word “consequences” with something bad, but it also represents something good happening in our lives. The “good” is a result of a choice or choices that are building blocks or enablers [...]

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My Friend – David Burgess – A Short Life

The other day, Roger Bell, President of Footnote told me about one of his friends who died at age eleven.
Tonight I remembered his story and thought about my own friend, David Burgess, who was killed along with his mother in an auto accident when he and I were five.
My memories of his last two hours [...]

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A Shovel On His Shoulder

I was out on the front lawn playing with my dog when I heard someone whistling.  Looking up, I saw my great uncle Si Bennett walking down the road toward our house with a shovel over his shoulder.
He wore his old sweat stained Stetson hat, bib overalls and work boots.  I don’t think he stood [...]

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Those Wonderful Historical Societies

From time to time I ‘rummage’ through my file cabinets and binders looking for information and documents that have either been misfiled or overlooked.  I’m always rewarded in this activity as lost or forgotten treasures turn up, much to both my chagrin and delight.
I use an extensive filing system and try to keep all my [...]

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Who Is THAT?

I have a number of boxes in my family history closet that are full of old photos.  I sort through them from time to time, scanning a few more during each pass and add the images to family histories I write or as attachments to records in my database.   That is good.   Photos truly do [...]

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Georgia, Ohio, Texas and Washington Death Records

I’ve spent quite a few hours on FamilySearch labs over the past few weeks gathering death records to add to the sourcing of records in my databases.  see http://www.familysearchlabs.org
If you haven’t visited the site for a while, you will be surprised at the list of titles that have been indexed by volunteers over the [...]

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I Saw A Man Engraving…

The batteries in my camera died while I was taking photos of headstones recently. I heard another vehicle park near me while replacing the batteries and looked to see if it someone I knew. It was just a MAV (mother’s assault vehicle or mini-van to most of you) with a small trailer behind [...]

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I Met A Veteran Today

The weather was warm and the sun was bright in the hours before the next spring storm rolled into the valley.
I decided to spend a few hours taking photos of headstones and posting them on Find-a-grave and Footnote taking advantage of a Pay-It-Forward opportunity.  
Sometimes you just have to walk away from a complex problem [...]

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Tombstones and Wiki’s

Tombstone InscriptionsWe often talk about viewing and posting headstone photos in our family history research. However, most cemetery records do not involve websites with just photos of headstones. They are lists of tombstone inscriptions gathered by volunteers around the world and posted on the web. If you haven’t searched for these [...]

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